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March 24, 2008

A move to resurrect the school censorship bill!

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On the House floor today, Rep. Owen Donohoe (R-Shawnee) moved to withdraw SB 492 from the House Education Committee and bring it to the full House for debate.

This bill started out as a fix to the permanent teacher license ban on persons with a misdemeanor DUI. It was amended on the Senate floor by Sen. Karin Brownlee (R-Olathe) to include an “obscenity” measure that would result in moves to limit access to teaching materials that some parents might consider objectionable.

When the bill went to the House Education Committee, it was debated and the committee voted overwhelmingly to take no action on the bill. Only five members of the committee, including Donohoe, wanted to take action. As a result the bill has been sitting in the House Education Committee.

Donohoe’s motion must sit overnight before a vote may be taken. It would then take a supermajority of 70 Representatives to bring the bill to the floor.

KNEA strongly opposes this motion. The bill is unnecessary since districts already have in place review practices to challenge materials and since students are given alternative assignments if they object to materials used in class.

Urge your representative to vote NO on the motion to withdraw SB 492 from the House Education Committee. Click here to take action.

Virtual schools bill, school finance to be considered in House Ed Committee

The House Education Committee will consider SB 669, the virtual schools bill recommended by their Subcommittee on Virtual Schools. The Subcommittee met briefly this morning to hammer out the last little bit and will have the bill ready for discussion tomorrow.   

Under the Senate bill, virtual schools would receive 114% of base state aid per pupil (BSAPP) and nothing more. The House Subcommittee is proposing the following changes:

• Virtual schools would get 103.5% of BSAPP (this is roughly equal to BSAPP plus high enrollment weighting),
• Virtual schools would get regular at-risk and non-proficient at-risk weightings for any free lunch students in the virtual school providing the virtual school has an approved at-risk program,
• A separate virtual school fund will be set up in districts with virtual schools to better account for expenditures,
• Virtual students would count for LOB calculations,
• A student with an IEP could be split between a virtual school and a traditional “brick and mortar” school (this is currently allowed only for general education students), and
• Additional savings from the above changes would be used to pay for any student from a small school district (greater than 200 square miles in area and at least 260 students) that does not offer advanced placement classes to take AP classes in a virtual school. Such students would generate a 0.16 weighting.

Also up for consideration tomorrow will be SB 531, the fourth year school funding bill passed by the Senate. This bill provides an increase of $59 on BSAPP in school year 09-10 which is equivalent to a 1.3% increase. KNEA supports a fourth year and putting the money on BSAPP but believes that a sub-inflationary increase will erode every school districts’ ability to address the needs of students and teacher salaries.

The Committee will not be allowing an increase in the total amount of money so any amendments to target funds elsewhere will be at the expense of the increase in BSAPP.

Senate Education Committee takes on special education funding

The Senate Education Committee today took up SB 620 and SB 646, both on special education.

The first bill, SB 620, codifies the procedure for determining Medicaid replacement aid for school districts and is widely supported in the education community.

The second bill, SB 646, is more controversial. A study by the Legislative Post Audit Division found that, while the state calls for a 92% reimbursement of special education excess costs, the actual reimbursements receive by school districts range from about 45% to over 200%. This is because funding is sent on a per teacher basis. Those districts that hire more teachers and pay higher salaries generally receive a much lower reimbursement.

Under the bill, special ed funding levels would be frozen and any new money appropriated would go to those districts receiving less than 92% until every district reached the 92% level. In the meantime, inflation would eat away at the percentage reimbursement for districts receiving over 92%.

There was some interest in the committee of sending the bill to a special summer task force to explore the special education formula and make recommendations. Sen. Ruth Teichman (R-Stafford) moved to form such a task force but that motion failed on a tie vote.

A motion by Sen. John Vratil (R-Leawood) to amend SB 646 into SB 620 passed on a vote of four to five. The amended bill was then passed out of committee and will now go to the full Senate for consideration.  

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